populosus

Forms

populōsus (feminine populōsa, neuter populōsum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin populus¹ (“people”) + -ōsus.^[2][1] De Vaan traces populus¹ to Proto-Italic *poplo- (“army”), whose further origin is unknown.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in Apuleius, in the Metamorphoses (a numerous household, crowded streets, a populous city) and the Florida, meaning full of people, populous.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

L&S counts it as post-classical; the TLL finds it here and there in prose from Apuleius on and more rarely in verse.^[5][6] It could also mean numerous: Sidonius Apollinaris gives Briareus a “populous” body.^[5] The comparative is in Vegetius and the superlative in Solinus.^[5]

Medieval Latin kept the sense of populous.^[7] English borrowed it from post-classical Latin in the early 15th century.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses it of a city and of a household.^[2][4]
• first half of the 3rd century AD – Solinus calls an island most populous.^[5][4]
• c. 400 AD – Vegetius has the comparative.^[5][4]
• early 15th century – English borrows it as populous.^[8]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Full of people, populous.^[2][5][7]
2. Numerous, many.^[5]

Word family

• populositas

Related words

• English populous

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com